This invention relates to the recovery of marketable products such as oil and gas from hydrocarbon bearing deposits such as oil shale or tar sand by the application of electromagnetic energy to heat the deposits. More specifically, the invention relates to a method and system including use of a high power radio frequency signal generator and an arrangement of elongated electrodes, inserted in the earth formations for applying electromagnetic energy to provide controlled heating of the formations.
Materials such as oil shale, tar sands, and coal are amenable to heat processing to produce gases and hydrocarbonaceous liquids. Generally, the heat develops the porosity, permeability and/or mobility necessary for recovery. Oil shale is a sedimentary rock which, upon pyrolysis or distillation, yields a condensable liquid, referred to as shale oil, and non-condensable gaseous hydrocarbons. The condensable liquid may be refined into products which resemble petroleum products. Tar sand is an erratic mixture of sand, water and bitumen with the bitumen typically present as a film around water-enveloped sand particles. Using various types of heat processing, the bitumen can be separated. Also, as is well known, coal gas and other useful products can be obtained from coal using heat processing.
In the destructive distillation of oil shale or other solid or semi-solid hydrocarbonaceous materials, the solid material is heated to an appropriate temperature and the emitted products are recovered. The desired organic constituent of oil shale, known as kerogen, constitutes a relatively small percentage of the bulk shale material, so very large volumes of shale need to be heated to elevated temperatures in order to yield relatively small amounts of useful end products. The handling of the large amounts of material is, in itself, a problem, as is the disposal of wastes. Also, substantial energy is needed to heat the shale, and the efficiency of the heating process and the need for relatively uniform and rapid heating have been limiting factors on success. In the case of tar sands, the volume of material to be handled, as compared to the amount of recovered product, is again relatively large, since bitumen typically constitutes only about ten percent of the total, by weight. Material handling of tar sands is particularly difficult even under the best of conditions, and the problems of waste disposal are, of course, present here, too.
A number of proposals have been made for in situ methods of processing and recovering valuable products from hydrocarbonaceous deposits. Such methods may involve underground heating or retorting of material in place, with little or no mining or disposal of solid material in the formation. Valuable constituents of the formation, including heated liquids of reduced viscosity, may be drawn to the surface by a pumping system or forced to the surface by injecting another substance into the formation. It is important to the success of such methods that the amount of energy required to effect the extraction be minimized.
It has been known to heat relatively large volumes of hydrocarbonaceous formations in situ using radio frequency energy. This is disclosed in Bridges and Taflove U.S. Reissue Pat. No. Re. 30,738. That patent discloses a system and method for in situ heat processing of hydrocarbonaceous earth formations wherein a plurality of conductive means are inserted in the formations and bound a particular volume of the formations. As used therein, the term "bounding a particular volume" was intended to mean that the volume is enclosed on at least two sides thereof. In the most practical implementations the enclosed sides were enclosed in an electrical sense, and the conductors forming a particular side could be an array of spaced conductors. Electrical excitation means were provided for establishing alternating electric fields in the volume. The frequency of the excitation means was selected as a function of the dimensions of the bound volume so as to establish a substantially non-radiating electric field which was substantially confined in said volume. In this manner, volumetric dielectric heating of the formations occurred to effect approximately uniform heating of the volume.
In the preferred embodiment of the system described in that patent, the frequency of the excitation was in the radio frequency range and had a frequency between about 1 MHz and 40 MHz. In that embodiment, the conductive means comprised conductors disposed in respective opposing spaced rows of boreholes in the formations. One structure employed three spaced rows of conductors which formed a triplate-type of waveguide structure. The stated excitation was applied as a voltage, for example across different groups of the conductive means or as a dipole source, or as a current which excited at least one current loop in the volume. Particularly as the energy was coupled to the formations from electric fields created between respective conductors, such conductors were, and are, often referred to as electrodes.
The reissue patent disclosed the imposition of standing electromagnetic waves on the electrodes embedded in the formation. Such standing waves create a sinusoidally varying electric field along the length of the electrodes, with peaks and nodes separated by a distance equal to one quarter of the wavelength (.lambda./4) of the signal applied to the electrodes. This, in turn, creates a heating power which varies in strength along the length of the electrodes and which, consequently, gives rise to heating and temperature variations along the length of the electrodes. As it was desired to provide uniform heating, the system disclosed in that patent provided compensation for such variations in the following ways: (1) by modification of the phase or frequency of the excitation signal, and (2) by decreasing the effective insertion depth of some of the conductors by either pulling some of the conductors part way out of the formation or by employing small explosive charges to sever end segments of the conductors.